It's been nearly 2 months since my last update, but I have been busy printing and tweaking! I have printed a few gifts for my family (small jewelry boxes) and I've printed some upgrades to the printer. Since my last post, I installed the dual-y rail upgrade and began using PEI as my build surface. Since the dual-y rail upgrade, my bed has been much more stable. I am also running my printer from an MKS Gen L board with TMC2208 drivers. The TMC2208 drivers are drop in replacements for the stock A4988 drivers and much more efficiently than my previous DRV8825 drivers.

I think there is something strange with my frame though as my prints are just a slight bit slanted. I will likely need to do some frame stabilization upgrades in the near future to resolve this issue. I will likely go with more aluminum extrusions in order to ensure that my frame is rigid and straight up and down. I have 3d printed spacers for the dual-y rails, but I think these aren't perfect so I would like to fix this with a frame upgrade.

Printing on PEI has been a dream come true. I no longer have bed adhesion issues. I have only been printing PLA on PEI so far, but I will be getting into trying PETG soon. I had printed PETG directly on a sheet of borosilicate glass previously, however, the PETG bonded too strongly with the glass and when I removed the part, it took small chunk of glass. This chunk of glass was very small, but if I continued printing PETG that way, I could have ended up with a very uneven build surface. I have heard that PETG sticks very hard to PEI, but I will need to do some experimentation to see!

My next upgrades include a square frame (full base) with right angle mounts for my dual y-axis rails, stronger center brackets (replace the flimsy tiny metal brackets), z-axis supports, and potentially some feet out of TPU to absorb vibrations from the printer. My prints are currently at an acceptable quality level, but I do know, with the improvements I listed, my print quality can improve more.

At this point, I've spent enough money on the upgrades for this printer to where I could have just bought a Tevo Tornado or equivalent. However, these printers are more or less put together when you unpack them from the box. I have learned far more from putting together my Tevo Tarantula than by simply building a 90% complete printer.

My previous printer, the Monoprice Select Mini v2, although a good printer for most, is difficult to service (for beginners). I was, at the time, very much a beginner at 3d printing. It was a bit intimidating to take apart the Monoprice Select Mini v2 since I knew nothing about the internals of 3d printers. With my Tevo Tarantula, the entire build process with upgrades has been monumental in my understanding of 3d printing.

At some point, I would like to get a second 3d printer, but I will likely hold out for a full color 3d printer which mixes colors in realtime. At this time, full color printing is more of a luxury with a printer or extruder upgrade + printer costing upwards of $1000. We are on our way of this becoming more mainstream in the next year or so. For now, I am happy with my dual color/dual material Tevo Tarantula. In the meantime, I may explore painting my prints in post processing.